[Fwd: Re: public nudity sample vote?]

[Mushroom <mushroom@moscow.com>]

thansen@moscow.com wrote:
> 
> Ed Evans stated:
> 
> > Just curious: What would you do with the results of a test vote which only
> > includes the internet-enabled Moscow residents who subscribe to Vision 2020?
> 
> This question is simple enough to answer.  This is a sample survey.  As such,
> it is not necessary to provide it to every resident of Moscow, just a sample
> portion.  Access to the website survey would not be limited to only those who
> subscribe to Vision 2020, but to everyone who has access to a computer and the
> internet.
> 


The question is simple enough to answer, but maybe not to
answer well. (Let me interject here that I have no problem
with conducting the survey, only with how the results might
be interpreted.)

In order to generalize to any group, every member of the
group has to have an equal (or known) chance of being
surveyed. If you offer the opportunity of participation to
all Vision 2020 subscribers (or even to all Moscow residents
of voting age), you aren't going to have a representative
sample because of self-selection; some will choose to
participate and some won't. You get a representative sample
by choosing participants randomly.

That said, if enough people would be interested in the
results, there's no harm in conducting a "non-scientific"
survey. Television does it all the time.

And no, "non-scientific" in this context does not have
anything to do with religion.

Don Coombs